Resilience
Photo by Michael Stulman/CRS
Our Work Overseas
Why resilience?
Communities around the world increasingly face shocks, long-term stresses, and general unpredictability. Chronic poverty and food insecurity, climate change and extreme weather events, conflict and instability, and health emergencies are common challenges. Preparing people to face these challenges means building their individual capacities, assets, and agency to be more prepared, able to cope with shocks and longer-term stresses, and ultimately to become resilient.
What is resilience?
CRS defines resilience as the ability to prepare for as well as to bounce back and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth.
CRS has a deep history of building resilience among individuals, households, communities, and systems. Our approach to resilience builds from CRS’ Integral Human Development (IHD) Framework, which places people at the center of development, promoting a holistic approach to well-being that includes multiple assets, as well as the ways in which people interact with and influence the systems and structures that impact their lives.
CRS’ framework for resilience
CRS’ Resilience Framework captures the holistic development approach and design elements of the IHD model, and programming experience across sectors and from diverse contexts.
Figure 1: CRS’ Resilience Framework
Under the CRS framework, the Risk and Vulnerability Context is determined by the (a) long‑term trends or pressures that undermine stability — stressors such as erratic weather related to climate change, environmental degradation, social inequities, chronic insecurity, or market crises — or by (b) short‑term, negative deviations from long‑term trends that have substantial negative effects on people’s asset base or well-being — shocks, such as drought, flooding, natural disasters, or conflict. The level of exposure — severity, frequency, and duration — also influences the impact of both shocks and stressors.
People rely on resilience factors that influence their ability to respond to shocks and stressors. These factors include (a) people’s access to and control over assets, be those human/spiritual, social, political, natural, financial, or physical, as represented by the IHD framework, and (b) their capacities to utilize those assets effectively. Assets and capacities are influenced by systems and structures, which can help or hinder the development of these resilience factors but are also themselves influenced by people’s collective use of their assets and capacities. Human agency is placed at the center recognizing that people are agents of their own development.
When faced with shocks or stressors, people undertake a combination of strategies, driven by their sensitivity that results from the risk context, assets/capacities available to them, and systemic/structural factors. Coping or absorptive actions — such as moving to temporary shelter, selling assets, reducing consumption of goods and services, using savings or taking loans — minimize exposure to stressors and shocks or enable immediate recovery. However, as stressors or shocks continue, the capacity of people to cope is severely reduced unless they make proactive and informed choices to develop adaptive responses that reduce risks and increase preparedness. Examples include disaster risk planning, livelihood diversification, building savings, or strengthening social networks and safety nets. Transformative strategies — that influence systems to create an enabling environment through improved governance, equity and social inclusion, diverse and inclusive local markets, formal and informal social protection mechanisms, basic service delivery, and public policies that provide the necessary conditions for systemic and structural change — can require collective action and contribute to longer‑term resilience.
Three different pathways illustrate how people move towards resilience outcomes, influenced by the resilience factors and strategies taken. If — despite facing a shock or stressor — individuals, households, communities, and even systems continue to maintain stability and progress towards enhanced well-being outcomes, they follow a prosperous pathway that leads them into a virtuous cycle of sustainable development. If they face a shock or stressor that causes a reduction in their well‑being but they can recover to their original situation or to a better one, they follow a resilient pathway that will not negatively affect their long-term development trajectory. However, if they face a shock or stressor that causes a reduction in their level of well‑being and are not able to recover to their original situation, they follow a vulnerable pathway that reverses progress towards sustainable development. These pathways feed into well-being outcomes that can be at the individual or household level — such as food and nutrition security, livelihoods, health, or social cohesion — or pertain to the stability and development of communities, structures, or systems.
Implicit in the framework is that resilience is not linear but dynamic and comprised of cycles. For example, adaptive strategies that reduce risk limit the magnitude of coping strategies needed. Similarly, positive outcomes reinforce resilience by recovering and growing further assets, and therefore creating a virtuous cycle that contributes to integral human development. In contrast, lack of risk reduction or systems strengthening increases the challenge of effective coping, while negative outcomes result in the loss of assets and increases future vulnerability, creating a vicious cycle that hinders integral human development. Thus, the framework acknowledges a dynamic process of change.
The framework also recognizes the role of external interventions – from CRS and other actors – in influencing the risk and vulnerability context and the resilience factors. External intervention programming may be designed to build assets or capacities directly, or may engage the public and private sectors, or civil society and project participants themselves, to influence changes in their behaviors, social norms, policies, or practices, with the aim of promoting change in systems and structures.
Finally, a deliberate investment in feedback and learning — both the practice of conducting resilience evaluation but also integrating findings into improved interventions — is reflected in the framework, allowing better programming to empower individuals, households, communities, and systems to mitigate and adapt to future or on-going shocks and stressors.
How does CRS build resilience?
In recognition of the complex nature of resilience, CRS’ Resilience Theory of Change states that IF individuals, households, and communities (1) reduce vulnerability to shocks and stressors AND (2) effectively utilize their assets and capacities to absorb shocks and adapt to longer-term
Figure 2: CRS’ Resilience Theory of Change
The Theory of Change also defines the approaches and interventions that lead to resilient individuals, households, communities, and systems. These closely follow the absorptive (risk reduction and coping), adaptive, and transformative (systems) paradigm used across common resilience frameworks. CRS also emphasizes effective sequencing, layering, and integrating of interventions for building resilience, so that multiple assets and capacity areas can be built simultaneously.
Risk Reduction and Coping
CRS builds preparedness, reduces risk and vulnerability, promotes effective coping, and strengthens absorptive capacities. Programming examples include Disaster Risk Reduction planning; savings groups and financial education/inclusion; physical health and psychosocial well-being; and social cohesion strengthening and peacebuilding, among other intervention areas. Leveraging the financial, social, and productive assets built, such as the use of savings or inter-personal support structures, can then facilitate coping during times of need. Programming can also involve approaches like cash and voucher assistance following a shock to facilitate more effective coping in the moment.
Adaptation to Changing Conditions
CRS promotes the development and use of strategies designed to address longer-term stressors, recurrent shocks, and changing conditions. Examples of programming include natural resource management and restoration along with livelihood strengthening and diversification. Approaches that promote climate-resilient agricultural production, build job skills, and promote connections to clients/markets also contribute to adaptation.
Systems Change and Transformation
CRS targets the systems and structures that both (a) help individuals, households, and communities to be more resilient, and (b) that themselves need to be strengthened to be more resilient. Programming builds effective and resilient systems/governing structures; and strengthens the delivery of appropriate/timely services. Examples include market systems development with SMEs and the private sector; strengthening social protection systems; and governance and organizational strengthening, among others.
Figure 3: Resilience within the Pathway to Prosperity
From a programming perspective, resilience-building may also differ depending on the phase of the Pathway. For example, from Recover to Build there is a stronger emphasis on developing the absorptive capacities and assets needed to cope and reduce further vulnerability. From Build to Grow, the focus is on building capacities of individuals and communities to adapt to recurrent shocks and stressors and implement risk management strategies. Systems change occurs at all levels, although systems at Emergency and Recovery phases may provide different functions than at Build or Grow phases.
Measuring resilience
Delivering the most impactful resilience programming possible requires measuring different resilience dimensions and using that evidence in design and implementation. CRS uses diverse resilience measurement approaches that track the impacts of interventions, use predictive models to identify vulnerabilities and opportunities before shocks occur, and utilize data for program planning and adaptation.
CRS’ agency-wide resilience indicator tracks both (1) levels of preparedness for shocks/stressors, and (2) coping trajectories after a shock has occurred by using food security as a proxy indicator of the existence/lack of resilience. For more in-depth resilience assessment, CRS uses an approach built off of the narrative-based and qualitative SenseMaker methodology that allows respondents and evaluators to track whether respondents followed a Prosperous (prepared, minimal disruption from shock), Resilient (disrupted but bounced back), or Vulnerable pathway (disrupted and not fully recovered). For recurrent resilience monitoring, CRS’ innovative Monthly Interval Resilience Analysis (or MIRA) approach is used to track exposure to shocks, coping strategies taken, and impacts on food security and well-being through the use of common indices. MIRA utilizes locally-based enumerators, monthly data collection, statistical analysis of trends and predictive machine learning to project vulnerable regions and households, and a feedback cycle where results are returned to participating communities via simple reports that allow collaborative response and locally-led development.
Where to learn more
For more information on CRS’ resilience work:
Resilience resources
- CRS Resilience Framework
- Towards Resilience
- Guide to Facilitating Community-Led Disaster Risk Management
- Emergency Field Operations Manual
- Understanding and Assessing Resilience
- Monthly Interval Resilience Analysis
- Recurrent Resilience Monitoring at CRS
Case studies
- Disaster Risk Reduction for Resilience
- Graduation Approaches and Resilience at CRS
- Layering NRM and Social Cohesion for Resilience-Building
- Understanding Community Perceptions of Resilience
- Building more resilient pathways to prosperity
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